n 2017, shortly after entering office, President Donald Trump announced the United States was withdrawing from the Trans–Pacific Partnership (TPP). The massive trade agreement would have drawn 12 Pacific Rim economies closer together but was roundly criticized on the campaign trail by the Republican president. Trump saw it as indicative of the uneven trade balance between the United States and its Asian partners, hyperbolically calling it “a rape of our country.”
In practice, the TPP was much more than a trade agreement, it was a strategic signal to China about America’s commitment to the region and evidence of the Obama–initiated “Pivot” to the Indo–Pacific. Trump’s decision to withdraw from the TPP, however sensible it was for his domestic political interest, undermined America’s position in the region and strengthened the hand of Beijing, precisely at a time when Washington could ill–afford to do so.
The failure of the TPP is just one data point among many of the mismatch between America’s words and deeds that followed Obama’s “rebalancing” that is recounted by former Ambassador Robert D. Blackwill and Richard Fontaine in their book “Lost Decade.” Blackwill, who served as deputy national security advisor for strategic planning under President George W. Bush, and Fontaine, the CEO of the Center for a New American Security, provide an impressively deep and comprehensive look at successive administrations’ efforts to reprioritize the Indo–Pacific and, in so doing, provide a graphic illustration of the challenges that faced, and continue to face, Washington as it confronts competition with China.
Charting the efforts of the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations to realign the country’s energies and resources towards the Indo–Pacific, Blackwill and Fontaine illustrate the striking disconnect between policy ambitions and practical abilities. With China’s economic, military, and political expansion, three successive administrations saw the center of geopolitical gravity shifting towards the Indo–Pacific.
Domestic and foreign policy challenges conspired to ensure that “[t]he strategic objectives of America’s China policy, and how U.S. engagement in the Indo–Pacific might help attain those goals, would remain at best a work in progress.” Obama found his efforts to resource the Pivot constrained by a fractious Congress and the Republican–driven Budget Control Act and sequestration.
Trump’s energies were scattered and, arguably, misplaced, emphasizing (failed) attempts to resolve tensions with North Korea. Despite his divided personal focus, his administration did manage to realign the government and Congress on the threat posed by China—a process recounted by Josh Rogin in “Chaos Under Heaven.” The Biden administration, ironically, continued many of the Trump–era policies, expanding them as both part of its domestic agenda (“foreign policy for the middle class”) and efforts to more firmly confront the challenge from Beijing, not the least of which was through an aggressive use of trade tools.
In the end, Blackwill and Fontaine are rather damning in their assessment of the Pivot, finding America’s response–despite its stated intentions–wanting in light of China’s impressive rise.. Blackwill and Fontaine note:
"[A]s China systematically increased its power and influence in Asia and globally, there was comparatively little U.S. strategic response. There was virtually no U.S. pivot from other regions to Asia, and no significant increase in U.S. budgetary resources for the Indo–Pacific, ceding Beijing’s leaders plenty of running room. Washington’s inadequate reaction fortified their conviction that the United States was in long–term decline, distracted, and divided, and not up to the new Great Game."
Blackwill and Fontaine rather shrewdly explore the practical international impacts of the attempts and attendant failures of America’s Pivot. Central to the Pivot was the rebalancing of resources and attention, at least in theory, away from the Middle East and Southwest Asia and towards the Indo–Pacific. The Obama administration, in particular, sought to extricate America from the War on Terrorism and end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the case of the former, the drawdown of American forces created space for the rise of the Islamic State necessitating another intervention, and it was not until the Trump administration that a pathway for leaving Afghanistan was paved (and disastrously executed by Biden). Blackwill and Fontaine conclude that for all the talk of leaving the region, not much changed: “Herein lies the supreme irony of the purported American withdrawal from the Middle East. No such withdrawal occurred, and no pivot of resources or attention to Asia took place.”
Europe sought to keep America engaged in its affairs out of necessity and self–interest. America’s security guarantees and attendant defense spending, arguably, subsidized Europe’s social welfare programs. In the absence of a clear continental threat, despite Russian bellicosity, it was largely content with the state of play. An America turning to the Indo–Pacific would, however, mean a less-engaged Washington and greater demands on European governments to be responsible for their own affairs. Europe also did not—at least initially—share America’s fears about China’s power or ambitions. There were disagreements about Beijing’s behaviors, but Europe stopped short of sharing Washington’s alarm at China’s hegemonic ambitions. Over the course of the U.S. Pivot, this changed for European leaders, particularly in response to China’s aggressive economic behaviors and belligerent “wolf warrior” diplomacy.
In the Indo–Pacific itself, the central focus of the Pivot, the track record is as muddled and mixed. The Trump administration’s withdrawal from the TPP noted at the opening of this review sent precisely the wrong signal to China and America’s allies in the region alike. Yet, it was Washington’s lack of response to Beijing’s expansionist and predatory behaviors that left regional partners confused and alarmed. As China pursued its literal expansionist foreign policy by creating bases in the South China Sea out of nothing more than reclaimed rocky shoals and coral reefs, “The United States again lost credibility by remaining passive in response to the PRC’s militarization of features in the South China Sea.”
The failure to match words with deeds over that 10–year period left America in a more strategically weakened position in the Indo–Pacific: “A decade after Washington declared Asia its priority region, the demand among Asian allies and partners for American engagement there was perhaps never higher. But their confidence in US leadership, competence, and staying power remained fragile or worse.” The consequences of Washington’s inability to align resources with priorities, managing competing demands, and to truly Pivot to the Indo–Pacific are far–reaching, and have left the United States in a decidedly disadvantaged position. Per Blackwill and Fontaine:
"The period from roughly 2011 to 2021 thus represents a lost decade. Had the United States pivoted to Asia as intended, it would be better able to deter war with China today…Pivoting to Asia would by no means have eliminated the Chinese challenge. It would, however, have made it easier for the United States to manage it."
Having so astutely diagnosed both the shortcomings and impacts of America’s “Pivot” policy from 2011 to 2021, the recommendations section feels undernourished by comparison. The authors offer a sensible set of four guiding principles and a series of paragraph–length to–do–list items, but the skeletal structure is yearning for more. This section alone is worth a book in and of itself, not to add additional work to either author’s plate.
It is worth considering the counterfactual: could the United States have ever actually, successfully, pivoted to the Indo–Pacific? Arguably not, due to the structural and systemic shortcomings of both democratic politics and the policymaking process. At a macro–level, for as grand and strategically sensible as the Pivot sounded on paper and in speeches, it never coalesced into a fully formed strategy. As the authors astutely observe, “the pivot never outgrew its early improvisation. Without a careful planning process, a rigorous weighing of costs and benefits, an analysis of alternative scenarios, or prior consultations with allies, the strategy remained rhetorically confusing, even contradictory.”
Washington, as designed, is ill–equipped to confront such a systemic and strategic challenge. “In a world of multiple challenges, inevitable crises, and an unprecedented competitor like China, how should—indeed, how could—America do everything, everywhere all at once?” The simple answer is that it cannot, or at least it cannot alone. Successfully competing with China in the Indo–Pacific, but also globally, means leveraging not just all the tools of American power, but also that of Washington’s allies. It means capitalizing on Beijing’s missteps, exploiting its weaknesses, and seizing opportunities when they present themselves.
“Lost Decade” easily joins the short but growing list of must–read books to better understand the past, present, and future of U.S.–China strategic competition. It is an astute and reproving accounting of successive missed opportunities and missteps, but also an incisive diagnostic inspection of the structural shortcomings of American policymaking. Only by understanding how we arrived at today can we better position ourselves for tomorrow.
a global affairs media network
Missing strategic opportunities in a pivotal period
Photo by linfeng Li on Unsplash.
June 8, 2024
Documenting squandered opportunities after Obama's "Pivot" to the Indo-Pacific, Robert D. Blackwill and Richard Fontaine's “Lost Decade” provides a graphic illustration of the challenges Washington faces as it confronts competition with China, writes Joshua Huminski.
I
n 2017, shortly after entering office, President Donald Trump announced the United States was withdrawing from the Trans–Pacific Partnership (TPP). The massive trade agreement would have drawn 12 Pacific Rim economies closer together but was roundly criticized on the campaign trail by the Republican president. Trump saw it as indicative of the uneven trade balance between the United States and its Asian partners, hyperbolically calling it “a rape of our country.”
In practice, the TPP was much more than a trade agreement, it was a strategic signal to China about America’s commitment to the region and evidence of the Obama–initiated “Pivot” to the Indo–Pacific. Trump’s decision to withdraw from the TPP, however sensible it was for his domestic political interest, undermined America’s position in the region and strengthened the hand of Beijing, precisely at a time when Washington could ill–afford to do so.
The failure of the TPP is just one data point among many of the mismatch between America’s words and deeds that followed Obama’s “rebalancing” that is recounted by former Ambassador Robert D. Blackwill and Richard Fontaine in their book “Lost Decade.” Blackwill, who served as deputy national security advisor for strategic planning under President George W. Bush, and Fontaine, the CEO of the Center for a New American Security, provide an impressively deep and comprehensive look at successive administrations’ efforts to reprioritize the Indo–Pacific and, in so doing, provide a graphic illustration of the challenges that faced, and continue to face, Washington as it confronts competition with China.
Charting the efforts of the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations to realign the country’s energies and resources towards the Indo–Pacific, Blackwill and Fontaine illustrate the striking disconnect between policy ambitions and practical abilities. With China’s economic, military, and political expansion, three successive administrations saw the center of geopolitical gravity shifting towards the Indo–Pacific.
Domestic and foreign policy challenges conspired to ensure that “[t]he strategic objectives of America’s China policy, and how U.S. engagement in the Indo–Pacific might help attain those goals, would remain at best a work in progress.” Obama found his efforts to resource the Pivot constrained by a fractious Congress and the Republican–driven Budget Control Act and sequestration.
Trump’s energies were scattered and, arguably, misplaced, emphasizing (failed) attempts to resolve tensions with North Korea. Despite his divided personal focus, his administration did manage to realign the government and Congress on the threat posed by China—a process recounted by Josh Rogin in “Chaos Under Heaven.” The Biden administration, ironically, continued many of the Trump–era policies, expanding them as both part of its domestic agenda (“foreign policy for the middle class”) and efforts to more firmly confront the challenge from Beijing, not the least of which was through an aggressive use of trade tools.
In the end, Blackwill and Fontaine are rather damning in their assessment of the Pivot, finding America’s response–despite its stated intentions–wanting in light of China’s impressive rise.. Blackwill and Fontaine note:
"[A]s China systematically increased its power and influence in Asia and globally, there was comparatively little U.S. strategic response. There was virtually no U.S. pivot from other regions to Asia, and no significant increase in U.S. budgetary resources for the Indo–Pacific, ceding Beijing’s leaders plenty of running room. Washington’s inadequate reaction fortified their conviction that the United States was in long–term decline, distracted, and divided, and not up to the new Great Game."
Blackwill and Fontaine rather shrewdly explore the practical international impacts of the attempts and attendant failures of America’s Pivot. Central to the Pivot was the rebalancing of resources and attention, at least in theory, away from the Middle East and Southwest Asia and towards the Indo–Pacific. The Obama administration, in particular, sought to extricate America from the War on Terrorism and end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the case of the former, the drawdown of American forces created space for the rise of the Islamic State necessitating another intervention, and it was not until the Trump administration that a pathway for leaving Afghanistan was paved (and disastrously executed by Biden). Blackwill and Fontaine conclude that for all the talk of leaving the region, not much changed: “Herein lies the supreme irony of the purported American withdrawal from the Middle East. No such withdrawal occurred, and no pivot of resources or attention to Asia took place.”
Europe sought to keep America engaged in its affairs out of necessity and self–interest. America’s security guarantees and attendant defense spending, arguably, subsidized Europe’s social welfare programs. In the absence of a clear continental threat, despite Russian bellicosity, it was largely content with the state of play. An America turning to the Indo–Pacific would, however, mean a less-engaged Washington and greater demands on European governments to be responsible for their own affairs. Europe also did not—at least initially—share America’s fears about China’s power or ambitions. There were disagreements about Beijing’s behaviors, but Europe stopped short of sharing Washington’s alarm at China’s hegemonic ambitions. Over the course of the U.S. Pivot, this changed for European leaders, particularly in response to China’s aggressive economic behaviors and belligerent “wolf warrior” diplomacy.
In the Indo–Pacific itself, the central focus of the Pivot, the track record is as muddled and mixed. The Trump administration’s withdrawal from the TPP noted at the opening of this review sent precisely the wrong signal to China and America’s allies in the region alike. Yet, it was Washington’s lack of response to Beijing’s expansionist and predatory behaviors that left regional partners confused and alarmed. As China pursued its literal expansionist foreign policy by creating bases in the South China Sea out of nothing more than reclaimed rocky shoals and coral reefs, “The United States again lost credibility by remaining passive in response to the PRC’s militarization of features in the South China Sea.”
The failure to match words with deeds over that 10–year period left America in a more strategically weakened position in the Indo–Pacific: “A decade after Washington declared Asia its priority region, the demand among Asian allies and partners for American engagement there was perhaps never higher. But their confidence in US leadership, competence, and staying power remained fragile or worse.” The consequences of Washington’s inability to align resources with priorities, managing competing demands, and to truly Pivot to the Indo–Pacific are far–reaching, and have left the United States in a decidedly disadvantaged position. Per Blackwill and Fontaine:
"The period from roughly 2011 to 2021 thus represents a lost decade. Had the United States pivoted to Asia as intended, it would be better able to deter war with China today…Pivoting to Asia would by no means have eliminated the Chinese challenge. It would, however, have made it easier for the United States to manage it."
Having so astutely diagnosed both the shortcomings and impacts of America’s “Pivot” policy from 2011 to 2021, the recommendations section feels undernourished by comparison. The authors offer a sensible set of four guiding principles and a series of paragraph–length to–do–list items, but the skeletal structure is yearning for more. This section alone is worth a book in and of itself, not to add additional work to either author’s plate.
It is worth considering the counterfactual: could the United States have ever actually, successfully, pivoted to the Indo–Pacific? Arguably not, due to the structural and systemic shortcomings of both democratic politics and the policymaking process. At a macro–level, for as grand and strategically sensible as the Pivot sounded on paper and in speeches, it never coalesced into a fully formed strategy. As the authors astutely observe, “the pivot never outgrew its early improvisation. Without a careful planning process, a rigorous weighing of costs and benefits, an analysis of alternative scenarios, or prior consultations with allies, the strategy remained rhetorically confusing, even contradictory.”
Washington, as designed, is ill–equipped to confront such a systemic and strategic challenge. “In a world of multiple challenges, inevitable crises, and an unprecedented competitor like China, how should—indeed, how could—America do everything, everywhere all at once?” The simple answer is that it cannot, or at least it cannot alone. Successfully competing with China in the Indo–Pacific, but also globally, means leveraging not just all the tools of American power, but also that of Washington’s allies. It means capitalizing on Beijing’s missteps, exploiting its weaknesses, and seizing opportunities when they present themselves.
“Lost Decade” easily joins the short but growing list of must–read books to better understand the past, present, and future of U.S.–China strategic competition. It is an astute and reproving accounting of successive missed opportunities and missteps, but also an incisive diagnostic inspection of the structural shortcomings of American policymaking. Only by understanding how we arrived at today can we better position ourselves for tomorrow.
